She didn’t retreat down the enclosed shale trough or trying to force her way past Vane’s right side along the shadowed inner wall. Instead, Ilyra pivoted ninety degrees to her left and stepped straight off the three-foot drop of the switchback curb onto the exposed outer limestone lip overhanging the western deep pit.
Her iron-cramponed boots hit the eighteen-inch-wide ribbon of wind-scoured rock with a sharp metal crunch. Instantly, the full, unbroken fury of the high-sky gale slammed into her back and tore at her grey-and-white tunic. Three hundred feet below her heels, the white floor of the valley cloud-sea boiled against the sheer cliff face. Directly across the empty air two hundred yards to the south, the entire railed apron of Hall Mistress Soran’s watching platform came into clear, clear view.
Every muscle across Ilyra’s torn right shoulder burned like salted fire as she caught her balance on that narrow ribbon of stone with the four-pound bronze lamp held steady in her left hand. Warm blood trickled down the hollow of her collarbone beneath her linen wrap, wetting the inner band of her tunic and stinging against the raw skin in the freezing wind. Yet inside the six-sided mica cage, sheltered behind the precise angle of her left forearm, the blue-white spirit flame didn’t go out.
